Big Increase in Visitation at Lake Mead National Rec Area in 2017

March 2, 2018 by Jean Widner

We thought this would be some interesting information for you that’s timely and fresh to our inbox from Christie Vanover at the National Park Service.

According to figures just released on visitation for 2017, the number of visitors to our Lake Mead National Recreation Area increased to 7,882,239 (OK, we rounded up a bit…) which moved our local National Park into being the 6th most visited park in the nation!

To quote the press release directly:

“Overall, visitation at Lake Mead National Recreation Area increased around 10 percent compared to 2016. Most of this increase was observed at the entrance stations closest to the Las Vegas Valley…The Boulder Basin continues to be the most visited area of Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Around 1.9 million visitors accessed the park via U.S. Highway 93 in Boulder City in 2017, and 1.5 million accessed the park via Lake Mead Parkway near Lake Las Vegas.”

Since the park opened in 1937, they’ve had 420 million visitors, and we’ve always ranked in the top 10 most visited National Parks in the US. But the last time we were close to 7.9 million was back in 2003.

For those of you who love all the nerdy math details, here’s some more of these fun numbers for ya:

Top 10 most-visited National Park Service sites

Blue Ridge Parkway – 16,093,765
Golden Gate National Recreation Area – 14,981,897
Great Smoky Mountains National Park – 11,388,893
Gateway National Recreation Area – 9,190,610
Lincoln Memorial – 7,956,117
Lake Mead National Recreation Area – 7,882,339 (this is where we moved up a notch!)
George Washington Memorial Parkway – 7,562,793
Natchez Trace Parkway – 6,326,062
Grand Canyon National Park – 6,254,238 (no…we’re not bragging, but did you realize we outrank that beautiful large hole in the desert?)
Vietnam Veterans Memorial – 5,072,589